


Interlaced

by yperittea



Category: Into The White (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Minor Character Death, Multi, Nazi Germany, Norway - Freeform, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Prisoner of War, Promiscuity, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, World War II, oblivious characters, praying, soulmate!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:45:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yperittea/pseuds/yperittea
Summary: Soulmate Alternative Universe when everything appearing on one of the soulmate's skin appears on the other one's as well. (Please see the notes for more information.)Horst Schopis and Charles Davenport have strange soulmates. That doesn't refrain their soulmates from interfering in their lives.





	Interlaced

**Author's Note:**

> In order to fit well in this story, Horst Schopis was born in 1909 (I couldn't find the real Horst Schopis's birthdate, sorry) and Charles Davenport is four years younger than him, thus born in 1913. 
> 
> I'm not sure where I found this prompt but it you recognise your idea, let me know, I'll include it here in the notes. Thank you in advance, it's a great prompt. I hope it helped to create a good story.
> 
> This is my first published English fanfiction - my first language is Czech, which is very different from English. 
> 
> This fanfiction wasn't beta-d. I can't read it again without urge to rewrite it completely and creating an utterly different story. I apologize for mistakes, there's certainly a lot of them.
> 
> Thank you for your patience and reading. Have a nice day and see you soon in notes for my next fanfiction! :)
> 
> (Hello, Veni! ^^)

**1915**  
It was a very hot day in Berlin and Horst was hanging around on the porch of their block of flats. His class was already over and his parents weren't home from their shifts yet. Suddenly, he heard a high pitched voice of Hilda, one of their neighbours' daughters. She was six years old at the time, just as old as he was. They were good friends in their childhood days.  
,,Horst! Horst!! You must see this!!!" She ran to him with wide eyes and extended her hand in front of his face.  
,,What is it, Hilda?"  
,,Look at it! I found my soulmate, Horst!" There was something on her skin but he couldn't recognise any shapes. She was so enthusiastic she was shaking.  
,,What?"  
,,Tja, Oma told me that if I paint on my skin, it will appear on my soulmate's skin as well! So I painted this flower - and this bee and sun just appeared themselves!"  
,,You made it up, didn't you!"  
,,NEIN! I swear, Horst! I only painted the flower! And you know I never lie to you!"  
,,But... can I have a soulmate too, then?"  
,,I think you can! Try it! Paint something on your hand just like me and see!"  
Horst didn't even answer. He sprinted to his family's flat, quickly found his pen and inkwell (which he almost spilled) and already held the pen set with ink above his skin when he realised he can't paint at all. He didn't want to look stupid in front of his soulmate, especially when he remembered Hilda sneering at his apple-not-apple he was supposed to paint at school.  
After several minutes of hard thinking, he finally laid the pen on his skin and painted a very, very tiny apple. It was very precise for a six year old child and Horst was quite satisfied with it, although it drained pretty much of his energy.  
But no answer from his soulmate came. Not that day, not even the day after that day when the apple was starting to be really smudged and ugly and his mother noticed it. After a long speech from his mother Horst scrubbed it off of his skin like the worst filth and didn't tell Hilda that he probably doesn't have a soulmate. She would only sneer and paint more flowers to her whoever-it-was.

 

 

 

**1925**  
The audience was going crazy. The youngest member of local rugby team, Charles P. Davenport, was just about to reach the final touchdown.  
,,GOGOGOGOGOGOGO!!!!"  
,,FINISH 'EM!!!!"  
,,Go, Charlie, GOOO-"  
Touchdown!  
,,YEEEEEEESSSS!!!!" His lord father's euphoria was beyond measure. His lady mother was almost crying with pride. Charles never saw them so excited because of him.  
To be honest, Charles himself was out of his mind with happiness. He proved to everyone he was the BEST!!! He won his rugby team the country cup. He couldn't be more proud at the moment when his teammates carried him on their shoulders from the pitch.

 

 

,,But you're really beaten up, Charlie!" stated his older sister later that evening. He was already lying on his bed and she was sitting on the edge of it.  
,,It doesn't matter Lisa, we won!"  
,,No really, this bruise over there-"  
Charles hissed as she touched his knee.  
,,See? That one's going to hurt a long time. It's very dark. Your soulmate girl is going to think you're some rude fighter."  
,,But we won, Lisa, we won! Did you see-"  
,,Of course I did, I was there."  
,,But did you see how Frederick Templeton, The Frederick Templeton, wasn't as fast as me?!"  
,,Yes, I did, Charlie. I think you should sleep now. It's Monday tomorrow."  
,,Oh, I don't want to sleep yet!" sighed young Charlie, now annoyed. ,,But what did you say about the soulmate girl?"  
,,Well, grandmother Philippine once told me that whatever appears on your skin appears on your soulmate's skin as well." Lisa's voice became livelier. ,,So if you're bruised like this, then your soulmate girl might think you're not a nice boy."  
Charles thought about it for a few seconds and then scoffed: ,,You girls don't understand anything!"  
And with those words he rolled on the bed with his face to the wall. Lisa left with a soft smile and ,,good night Charlie" on her lips.

 

 

 

 

**1929**  
Horst spent a whole night awake studying for his final exams at the university. He was exhausted, yet dedicated to learning all the materials he had to know in order to pass this year of university. It took him seven big cups of coffee to keep himself awake but when the sun came up in the morning, he had a feeling that he'll never pass the bloody tests. Who the hell could remember how this or that bloody machine was supposed to work? Where should be this or that god-damned formula used? Which oil was best for which parts?! He was genuinely interested in his studies but the stress that always came with the finals really drained him.  
So when he could already hear first tramways ringing under his dormatory's windows and clouds in the sky had the colour of cotton-candy, he decided to get some rest for a few minutes. His professors were going to start the exams at nine o'clock in the morning so he still had a little time, he thought as he made himself comfortable in his chair at quarter to five in the morning. All the terms and concepts were spinning in his head.  
,,Hey, Horst!!! Wake up! You'll miss the finals!!!" A sharp voice pierced his head literally five minutes after he dozed off.  
,,Damn you Erich, what's the time..."  
,,It's ten minutes to nine, you twat!!"  
,,WHAT?!!" Horst catapulted himself from the chair and his vision went black.  
,,Come quickly, you mustn't be late or you won't even be tested!!" His friend was already standing in the open door.  
,,Where's my legitimation-"  
,,Well, you should have thought about it before you decided to spend your whole night in brothel!! Schnell!!"  
,,WHAT?!?! I wasn't anywhere, I studied-"  
,,Oh don't play stupid, Schopis! You don't want to tell me it was your soulmate or what, don't you," Erich sneered. ,,Because you know I don't believe this Scheiße. Here, take this scarf and cover yourself, we really MUST leave! JETZT!!!"  
,,What-" Horst glanced at himself in the mirror in the hall and nearly fainted - not only that his hair was horribly messy, his face swollen, eyes almost closed and there were black bags under his eyes, but there also was a set of really nasty hickeys and bites on his neck. There were all fresh and red framed as if done by a woman wearing a bright lipstick. ,,-the HELL is this..."  
,,SCHOPIS!!!" shouted Erich already leaving down the corridor and Horst's thoughts were shattered. He quickly pulled up his collar and tied the scarf around his neck tightly before silently praying to God to let him pass the exams. And choosing him a different soulmate.

 

 

 

******193****** **4**  
It was spring holiday at universities, so Charles went home to see his family. He was sleeping soundly after a night of family hunting in his family's woods when a sharp, burning pain forced him to wake up with a scream. He was disoriented and scared above all, and the skin on his whole left arm was throbbing in pain. Quickly, he discarded his pyjama shirt and switched on his bed lamp.  
His whole left arm was getting redder and redder right in front of his eyes, his skin was insufferably hot and the pain was maddening. He didn't understand it at all. Nothing similar ever happened to him. He was slowly beginning to panic.  
Suddenly, there came an urgent knock on the door. His muscles twitched violently.  
,,Charles? Are you alright?" insisted his sister outside.  
,,LISA, come here please!!"  
Lisa stormed in his bedroom.  
,,I heard you screaming, what's happe- oh God, where did you get burned?!"  
,,I don't know, the pain suddenly came, I was sleeping-"  
,,Should I call the doctor?"  
,,NO, don't call anyone!"  
,,But you never had problems with skin, have you?"  
,,No, never."  
,,I'll fetch you some cold water, alright?"  
,,Yes, please. As cold as you can get."  
When she came back, she asked: ,,And you never even had soulmate marks, is that true?"  
,,Oh no, Lisa, not now..."  
,,What not now?"  
,,Don't start with that nonsense again."  
,,Well how do you explain this then?!"  
,,I don't know!! Lisa, I seriously don't know!! I just want it to stop hurting-"  
,,Oh yes, I brought some wet cloth, here you are."  
,,Thank you. And don't talk to me about this stupid superstition again."  
,,Alright, but let me just tell you this last fact," said Lisa calmly as she wrapped another cool cloth around her brother's arm. ,,I knew this girl, and I bet you knew her too - she used to work in our mansion as a servant a few years ago, Molly was her name. And this Molly's soulmate was Thomas, you surely remember him, that tall redhead who used to take care of our father's automobile. Well, this Thomas had an accident while cleaning the machine - he slipped on spilled oil and fell into the hot engine. I remember that exactly, because Molly was just pouring me tea when she screamed in pain and dropped my favourite tea kettle. She had very hot and red skin all over her hands and forearms, just in the areas where Thomas had his burns. That's how they found out they are soulmates. When his burns healed, he married Molly and moved to Canterbury with her."  
,,Are you telling me that I'm supposed to marry Joan of Arc or what?!"  
,,I'm not telling you anything anymore, you stupid ignorant," snapped Lisa and left not without slamming the door behind herself.

 

 

 

 

******193****** **8**  
The hickeys and lipstick stains on Horst's body became almost permanent. They always appeared and disappeared a few days later, some more serious bruises and bites often stayed for a week - all depended on the regeneration ability of his unknown soulmate. And since his soulmate seemed really careless about his skin, Horst wore stiff collars and scarves almost nonstop. It didn't do much good, since he was working for Luftwaffe then and his uniform didn't include a scarf.  
He was thinking really hard about it. The edges of the bruises were always red or pink and were always first to fade - that would indicate a lipstick. That must have meant only two things: his soulmate was either a man with passionate love life, or a really shameless lesbian. Horst couldn't decide which option he despised more.  
But it was not only funny that his neck was always covered in hickeys and his friend Erich suspected him of magically smuggling himself into all brothels in Berlin and building his prostitute empire. When he met Marlene Schmitzer, it became a real problem.  
Marlene was a daughter of Leopold Schmitzer, one of the most acclaimed tailors in Berlin. She was a legend for her great figure which she maintained for wearing her father's best models. Horst was intrigued by her and she liked him as well, although she was a little bit too familiar with his friends than he would like, particularly with his best friend Erich von Ziphrein. But he never mentioned it and kept asking her out for next few months, until one day he proposed her and she said yes.  
When they got married, it seemed to him that nothing in the world could matter more than making her feel loved and well. They didn't have to worry about money too much because she was quite a rich bride thanks to her father's business, but it wasn't the reason he married her. The reason he married her more resembled duty than want. He was determined to love her, he put this determination on his piedestal of merits, it became the alpha and omega of his universe. He wanted to engulf himself in his marriage, to make everything perfect, he wanted himself and his wife happy and stable and preferably with two or three children. Because this was the best option, this is what everybody should strive for, this was the way of life everyone should be aspiring to follow. Not the option where you follow your heart like in some crappy romantic book where you abandon everything you have for some "higher purposes" like searching for a soulmate. Horst Schopis's soulmate wasn't someone to look up to, no. It wasn't someone worth searching. Marlene, Marlene was the person who mattered the most. Marlene Schmitzer, now Marlene Schopis who would bear his children and live a long and happy and normal life with him.  
Marlene never mentioned his marks - she never discussed soulmates with him. Horst thought it was because he married a realistic and respectable lady who doesn't dwell on things like fate, which caused him to uphold her even more than before this realisation.  
He lived in this illusion until one day - he saw Erich with a nasty cat scratch on his cheek in the morning, just to see it again in the evening on his wife's face as well. Carefully hidden under a layer of makeup and powder, yes. But still there.  
He knew he couldn't blame her for this. But he still went to a brothel that night.

 

 

 

 

**1939**  
The wedding of Albert Isaac Partridge, heir to one of the biggest cloth factories in Kent, and Elisabeth Geraldine Davenport, daughter of Lord Victor Davenport whose family tree reached six centuries into the past, wasn't an event anyone posh wanted to miss. Even Charles had to acknowledge that his sister really had a beautiful wedding - there came nearly three hundred people and there wasn't a single person who wasn't anyhow known either to the bride or the groom. Magnificent wedding feast came and then a wild dancing party. The bride already drank a bit, so Charles wasn't even surprised when she came to him and asked him cheerfully:  
,,Do tell me, Charlie. Why do you change girlfriends as often as socks? Why don't you get yourself a nice girl, settle down and have a beautiful wedding like I do?"  
Charles scoffed at her suggestion.  
,,You should be glad you don't understand," he answered grumpily and got up to get himself another beer. ,,Magnificent party, Lisa, I must say."  
,,No no, brother, answer me," she insisted mildly. ,,Why don't you just find your soulmate and-"  
,,Oh God, no, not again this crap, Elisabeth," he cut her off and walked up to the bar. But before he could say "one ale", his sister came to him again.  
,,What are you afraid of? Your soulmate is your soulmate for a reason, don't you think?"  
,,Well I'm glad that your soulmate happened to be rich young heir and you're married to him now, but that does NOT mean mine will be exactly as perfect! What if it's a man? I'm not...a homosexual." He cleared his throat. ,,One ale please," he ordered at the bar and turned back to his sister. ,,How the hell did you even know he is your soulmate?"  
Lisa looked at her brother as if he were a dimwitted cattle.  
,,My dear brother, have you ever heard of a great invention named pen? You see, one can write with it... And so I took it and-"  
,,You didn't just write on your skin _good morning,_ _I'm Lisa Davenport, who are you_ , did you."  
,,That's exactly what I did, Charlie. And see? Now I'm marrying my wonderful soulmate and I'm going to be happy until I die, because my soulmate will be always with me, will never leave me, will always love me, and always can expect anything of these things of me. And you should do the same. Just hope you didn't forget to write when all you do is hang out with all girls in Kent at once."  
He hoped her speech was over and took a generous swig of his ale when she suddenly came back and told him:  
,,Soulmates are forever, because God said so. So if your soulmate is a man, then it was meant to be and nobody can change it. Not even you and your  aggressive love tourism."  
He choked on his ale very hard. As soon as he managed to gulp it down, he croaked at the bartender: ,,Whiskey. A big one."

 

 

 

 

**1940, May**  
A tall young Norwegian partisan came into the German's improvised cell.  
,,Leutnant Horst Schopis, Unteroffizier Josef Schwarz?"   
Schopis stood up from the chair he was given before and helped wounded Josef to his feet.  
,,You are being deported to a prisoner-of-war camp. You are leaving to the harbour in Trondheim right now. Further information and instructions will be delivered to you there. Come with me."  
Horst clicked his heels mechanically and helped Josef with walking. They followed the partisan to a little wooden boat on the lake they had to cross in order to get themselves closer to some kind of infrastructure. In the mountains there wasn't a single path. At least not a path recognisable under two feet of snow.  
Horst was looking around, trying to catch a glimpse of Captain Davenport, but the Englishman wasn't anywhere to be found. He didn't know why but a strange and irrational sadness hit him right in the heart. He never felt such sadness. Not even when his pet hen died. Not even when his mother died. Not even when his neighbour cried when she got a government letter that her daughter Hilda, a qualified nurse, died on the Eastern front because there was an unexpected assault from Polish partisans at the medical convoy she was travelling with. No, he was certain that he never wasthat sad.  
But at least they weren't getting executed, he had to remind himself constantly. _Me and my inability to fly properly isn't getting another person killed_ became his personal mantra which didn't stop the sorrow from intensifying in his system.  
He only saw Davenport when the boat was already almost twenty meters far from the shore. Their stares felt like locked and it was very strange indeed. Davenport averted his gaze quite early for Horst's taste but his heart involuntarily jumped when he caught a tiny glimpse of Davenport's smile before the Captain turned around and walked away.  
Horst realised he's probably never going to see this man again. He really had no idea why does it bother him like that and he kept digging in his mind for clues as he lowered his head in order to hide the tears welling up in his eyes.

 

 

 

 

**1940, June**  
_Royal Air Force failed. It couldn't protect Norway. We couldn't save Norway. I couldn't save Smith from dying - I was the reason of it. And I couldn't even save myself from becoming a German prisoner of war. What am I good for, really_.  
That were the main thoughts of Charles Davenport in June of 1940.  
Although there was one more thing which kept bugging his mind, and it was a strange pinching in the skin of his wrist which started at the day he was shot down in Trondheim. It felt like a very annoying and very precise rash but he didn't dare to check it in the battle. But when he crashed and was found by the Germans, he soon found that plenty of time for sulking and inspecting his wrist will come - he was going to be deported to a prison camp in Germany.  
Charles thought he's going to have a heart attack when he heard the news. His heart clenched with irrational protectiveness when he realised that Schopis had to go through it as well. So from that damned day he made a second plane crash which resulted in Smith's death and his capture, he spent most of the time on the road or in a train with lots of other English prisoners of war, always heading south.  
When he was on a ferry to Denmark, it might have been a week since his capture, he remembered that strange skin problem he had. At first he just thought it was a result of the stress or improper skin care, but curiosity won over him and he rolled up his sleeve just enough to see...  
...a pitch black sign.  
**_Who are you?_**  
He almost started screaming. He quickly scanned his companions but nobody was looking at him. Memories of Lisa's wedding struck him like a thunderbolt. Memories of Lisa in general struck him very hard. He hadn't seen her since her wedding, in fact. This was how she said she met her soulmate husband and he called her a liar for it. Regrets came very fast to him and he promised himself he's going to write her as soon as there is a paper and pen.  
There came a sudden urge to write back to the mysterious someone but he had nothing to write with. He was too certain he won't find anything suitable, so he left the question on his wrist unanswered. Instead, he studied the handwriting very closely. Not that he found out much (except that it wasn't written with ink, it was far too messy for it), but it was unbearably exciting and the more times Charles read the short sentence, the less able to formulate an answer he was. Who was he, really? Not a single solid or representative idea came to his mind.

 

 

 

**1940, July**  
Horst still wasn't quite used to being a prisoner of war. He still wore his wedding ring, although Marlene was no longer his wife - she left him for Erich a week before his mission in Norway. They left Germany for England together and she divorced him there, as he got to know from a British government letter sent to him to Canada (the reason was explicitly described as ,,improbable returning from prisoner-of-war camp" - who would bother explaining anyway). He was still thinking about her quite often, but it was a rudiment of his tragical marriage when he felt that desperate flock of duty ever-present on his back. Instead, his mind more and more frequently wandered to Davenport. He often found himself thinking of him, what he might be doing, where he might be and how he might be doing.  
Josef was placed in the same camp as him, thank God. He wouldn't be able to survive alone. Not without his arm, not after what happened, and not in the cruel climate of Canada which they were warned of (when he asked if it's worse than Norway, the wardens just laughed and said that Norway is a greenhouse if compared to Canada). Josef was doing quite well, he recovered from the amputation much better physically than psychically. Horst became much better friends with him in the camp, especially in their first months there.  
One evening in June, after the supper, they engaged in a conversation about their love life before war.  
,,Well, I was married, you already know," stated Horst neutrally.  
,,Ja, I overheard you saying it to Captain Davenport," nodded Josef. ,,I'm sorry about that. It was unfortunate."  
,,I loved her, but we simply weren't right together," agreed Schopis. ,,As a good friend of mine would say if she were alive, we weren't soulmates."  
,,Do you believe in soulmates?"  
,,I'm convinced of their existence," replied Horst seriously as Josef sneered out a bit. ,,No, I mean it. I have a soulmate who used to live a very promiscuous life a few years ago. I always had hickeys and bites on my neck and my back was constantly scratched."  
,,Wow, I had no idea this actually works," laughed amazed Josef quietly and unbelievingly. ,,So does this mean that I have a soulmate too? Somewhere?"  
,,You very well might."  
Without another word Josef stood up and ran away from the dining room. He was back in a few minutes, his eyes were shining.  
,,I went to the boiler room," he whispered and showed Horst the content of his pockets. They were full of coal. ,,I can write to my soulmate now!"  
Horst smiled at the boy's naivity but encouraged him to do so anyway.  
,,Do you want to write to yours too?" Josef asked with enthusiasm Horst experienced for the first and last time when he was six years old and Hilda and his mother were still alive. But he heard himself saying: ,,Yes, actually, I can try that. I've never done that before. I never even asked who is that."  
One month or so later after their discussion, it was July and the weather was beautiful, he was working with other prisoners in the forest. Suddenly a sharp pain, like a needle, started stinging in his elbow. He had to stop cutting the wood and rolled up his sleeve to see what's happening.  
There were six numbers tattooed on his skin.  
400427, in pitch black tattoo ink.  
He knew what it meant. He'd seen this format of tattoo before.  
It was the one that people got if imprisoned in German prison camps.  
Oh dear God, was the only thing he could think of, but he quickly rolled his sleeve back down and acted as if that was just a particularly annoying mosquito and not a sign of his promiscuous soulmate's probable soon death. He didn't know the exact conditions of German prisons, but he overheard some horrible things back at the airbase.  
Since that day, he prayed every night to God for his soulmate. Just as hard as he used to curse him for ruining his (already dysfunctional) marriage before, he was praying for the mysterious human who for certain people just meant 400427. He was painfully aware that if the tattoo had appeared on his body just one year ago, he wouldn't had been moved at all. He had had his wife back then and these numbers would had been just another tacky decoration of his body like the hickeys and bites and scratches and lipstick stains.  
He didn't show it to Josef. However, some bruises which later appeared quite frequently in his face couldn't be hidden. His hands were almost constantly purple, blue and yellow. He prayed harder whenever a new bruise appeared for the hickeys and love bites to come back.

 

 

 

 

**July,** **1945**  
The prison Charles was interned in was somewhere in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern area. The air was always very humid and it rained more often than not - soil was constantly soaked and a nearby creek turned to a small river whenever the rain lasted for more than an hour.  
Most of the men he befriended there were already dead by the end of the war, they were too weak to survive the typhus epidemic which broke out earlier that year in the camp. He himself was weak but managed to convince a nurse to steal some medicine for him, thus he survived. He hoped Schopis didn't have similar conditions in his prison camp.  
Although the war was already two months over and he was back in his family mansion, he was thinking about it far more than about the present moment. Just as on an unimportant ridiculously hot day in July when his sister with her family came to visit.  
,,Mama, is this our uncle? Papa, who is that man?!" cut off his reverie as he saw two children coming to him hesitantly from the distance, followed by Lisa and Albert.  
,,Charlie, brother, it's so good to see you again," sang Lisa when she hugged him tight.  
,,Lisa, I missed you," he didn't lie. He only shook hands with his brother-in-law. Albert's father died in 1939, so Albert had to overtake the cloth factory and couldn't go to war (much to Lisa's joy). However good that was, Charles had great difficulties finding common themes for conversation with him. He didn't keep up with any sport events, he didn't know and didn't understand bureaucracy of the factory Albert often raved about, he wasn't even married and he didn't understand how anyone could be. He knew piloting war planes, he knew stealing medicine in a prison camp, he knew how to save as much energy as possible on the Death March. However, Albert seemed to understand just a bit, so Charles took every advantage of it and didn't speak to him unless necessary.  
,,Children, this is your uncle Charlie," said Lisa in a teacher's voice. ,,He just returned from war. He was very brave. Say hello to him!"  
,,What, these are yours?" wondered Charles aloud. ,,But they are so big... How old are you, little one?" he asked a curly boy with Lisa's eyes.  
,,Five and half!" bragged the boy. A little girl was hiding behind her brother.  
,,And you, my fair lady?" Charles asked her as kindly as he could. She didn't even look at him and ran away. Lisa laughed and Albert ran after his daughter.  
,,Anyway, this is Lachlan Alexander," said Lisa and patted her son's shoulder. ,,And your fair lady is Salome Magdalena, she celebrated her third birthday a week ago. We couldn't arrive sooner, sadly. Bertie's car broke down and our mechanic has a broken shoulder blade so Bertie had to fix it himself. It didn't break down again, at least," she finished with a laugh.  
,,I missed so much..." reflected Charles melancholically.  
,,Yes, you did," she nodded, ,,but it was inevitable. We will spend more time together now. Lachlan, go play with papa and Sally." Little Lachlan happily ran away to his father and sister laughing in the distance.  
,,I hope so," sighed Charles. ,,Your children are really sweet."  
,,Well, Bertie is my soulmate, it was meant to be like this and I thank God for all of them every day," noted Lisa.  
Charles didn't even fight her over the soulmate issue.  
,,Lisa, I think I have to tell you something."  
,,Tell me then."  
,,I'm sorry about mocking your faith in soulmates all these years."  
,,Oh, I accept your apology of course. Did something happen between you and your soulmate?"  
,,No...well, yes." Charles sighed deeply. ,,I was asked who I am when I was in the prison camp. It appeared on my wrist."  
Lisa laughed softly and hugged her brother again.  
,,What did you reply?"  
,,Nothing."  
,,WHAT-"  
,,There was nothing to write with."  
,,Ah, I see." She grabbed his hand and walked swiftly with him to the mansion. They sprinted up the stairwell into the library.  
,,But now there IS something to write with, isn't it," she said out of breath while inserting a new filling into the fountain pen. ,,Here you are. I want to see it, I deserve it."  
Charles took the pen very hesitantly.  
,,Come on, Charlie! What can you lose?"  
He finally laid the stylus on his skin and carefully wrote: **,,Cpt. Charles Philip Davenport, Davenport Manor, TN, Kent, UK."**  
,,Write something nice," insisted Lisa.  
,,I think I'll better wait for the reply first."

 

 

 

 

**+1947**  
Charles gave up. His soulmate doesn't want him. He did everything he could, he told him who he was. And now he was drinking whiskey and soda with his brother-in-law on his family mansion's balcony. They watched Albert's children play. Lachlan was already homeschooled, he was seven years old and wanted to play rugby like his uncle. His sister Salome was a beautiful child, she was growing up very curious and loved plants, she often brought lots of flowers home from her walks with mother. At that moment she was playing hide and seek with her brother.  
Charles and Albert didn't speak much but neither of them seemed to mind. Certain sense of understanding grew between them, although they were almost the exact opposites. A rich business man with the wife of his dreams, beautiful and healthy children and prospering factory right next to a war veteran who always felt so alone he didn't even try to come back to his pre-war lifestyle. Lisa appreciated that he wasn't such a womaniser as he used to be but at the same time she hated seeing him so lonely. She tried to persuade him to talk to his unknown soulmate more but he insisted waiting for the answer - which, as he supposed, was never coming. What if his soulmate was one of the tons of girls he chatted up in his youth? What if his soulmate was from another country whose language he wouldn't know? Or what if it was a man? - these were many of excuses he created to himself which should explain why there was no answer coming.  
Until that otherwise insignificant day when he was sitting with Albert and drinking whiskey and soda. That was the day when forearm covered itself with carefully written letters.

 

 

 

**Hello dear captain**  
**Do you still remember me?**  
**Horst Schopis here**

 

 

 

After finishing reading, he swallowed the content of his glass in one gulp and silently threw his head backwards to stare at the sky.  
_So it's you,_ he thought, half amused, half grieving . _How could I not remember? How could I forget?_

 

 

 

He stood up without a word and went straight to the library. He took the fountain pen and wrote as quickly as he could:

 

 

 

**Come to me, you know my address**


End file.
